XDCAM EX PAL 1080i50

Hello, all

Long time no post.

So, I have some questions regarding issues that I've run into on a PAL project that I am cutting here in Los Angeles. The production was shot on XDCAM EX 1080i50. However, the production has not rented an actual PAL video monitor, so I'm trying to blindly distinguish between issues of FCP's computer monitor compression, and actual video issues.

1) One thing that I noticed right away, when I started cutting, was interlacing problems. It had that look you get when you are having pulldown problems -- two fields from two different frames mashed together. During playback, it looked fine, as long as I didn't do any slides. But, when I went frame by frame, there was visible interlacing. So, I went into my sequence settings, and turned Field Dominance to "NONE." Now, it looks like progressive frames, when I go through frame by frame.

When I created the sequence, I dragged a clip into it, and when FCP asked me if I wanted to change the settings to match the clip, I clicked "yes." Why would FCP then set a field dominance, if the best setting is no field dominance? Am I right to select "None" for field dominance? The image does look a big soft, but I assume that's just FCP compression for the computer monitor.

Moreover, my Motion projects, when I change the settings to XDCAM EX 1080i50, it gives me field dominance. Why is the Final Cut Suite doing this? Am I wrong to switch it to no field dominance?

2) When I animate stills, I am getting staggered motion when I render the Motion clip in FCP. Is this because I am working on a 60Hz monitor, in a PAL project? Can I expect this staggering to go away on a PAL video monitor? Or, do I need to change some setting to get smoother motion? It did seem to get smoother when I set Field Dominance to "None" in both FCP and the Motion project. But, I'm not sure that it's all gone.

3) I'm getting rainbow strobing/rippling on shots, kind of like a shutter problem, particularly where the luminance value is high, such as when there is a lot of sky in the frame. Sometimes, the rainbow ripples go away when I view the shot at 100% of its original size. In all cases, the strobing goes away when I go back to the shot in the Finder, and play it back in Quicktime. Which leads me to believe that either I need to change a setting in my sequence, or that this is the result of FCP's compression during playback. Can anybody tell me whether I need to worry about this, or whether the problem will go away on a PAL monitor?

Or, is it because the actual sky itself is different in France, and PAL simply cannot capture the atmosphere over North America?

Obviously, the best solution to my problems is to get the production to rent a PAL monitor, install a Kona card or the like in the system, and see how this stuff actually looks. But, since that is not immediately happening, if anybody can provide advice, I will be most grateful.

Thanks so much!

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

>The production was shot on XDCAM EX 1080i50.

I think the "i" means "interlaced". It's an interlaced format.

>Or, is it because the actual sky itself is different in France, and PAL simply cannot capture
>the atmosphere over North America?

The sun is shining at 60 hz, hence the strobing? Hmm... Why don't you get the PAL monitor first before editing?



www.strypesinpost.com

Yes, I understand that "i" means interlaced. Yes, I would love to get the PAL monitor. Alas, I am merely the editor, and I do not hold the purse strings.

I have, indeed, trashed my settings for other reasons, and those problems have persisted. They also persist regardless of whether I stick with upper field dominanace or no frame dominance.

The reason I am going with "NONE" for field dominance, despite this being an interlaced format, is that I was actually seeing what looked to me like the wrong fields meshed into the wrong frames. Even interlaced formats, in my experience, when you go frame by frame, you can't see the interlacing, because the system is showing you both interlaced fields at once. Every several frames, you see a little bit of it. But, not in every frame.

That problem went away completely when I chose NONE for field dominance. After doing that, I did a quick Google, and found a Creative Cow post that made a reference to the solution that I had found. So, I believe I am doing the right thing. I would just love for one of the experts here to confirm that.

And to give me some advice on the other questions I asked. Please. Pretty please.

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

as per your thread on the Apple Discussions forum:

1) ... I went into my sequence settings, and turned Field Dominance to "NONE." Now, it looks like progressive frames, when I go through frame by frame ... Am I wrong to switch it to no field dominance?

Yes. If you are cutting XDCAM EX 1080i50 in a XDCAM EX 1080i50 sequence then you should leave the Field Dominance set to Upper.

2) When I animate stills, I am getting staggered motion when I render the Motion clip in FCP. Is this because I am working on a 60Hz monitor, in a PAL project?

Probably, but then again I don't have a mismatched setup with which to test

3) I'm getting rainbow strobing/rippling on shots,... is the result of FCP's compression during playback.

Yes, or very likely so. You need to view your playback on a proprtly configured monitoring setup before you can make any such critical assumptions about your video

Or, is it because the actual sky itself is different in France, and PAL simply cannot capture the atmosphere over North America?



Obviously, the best solution to my problems is to get the production to rent a PAL monitor, install a Kona card or the like in the system, and see how this stuff actually looks. But, since that is not immediately happening...

if you can't go out and rent a PAL monitor and necessary I/O gear then consider buying or borrowing (or renting?) a Matrox MXO ... if you carry on as you are then you're just pisssing in the wind and may end up smelling less than rosy

Okay, I think I've talked them into getting a Blackmagic DeckLink card. Can you (or anybody) confirm that the card will support XDCAM EX 1080i50? I can't find any mention of XDCAM EX in their manual or on their site. They talk about 1080i50, and hey only talk about HDCam and DVCPro HD. But, not XDCAM EX 1080i50.

Thanks!

Are you getting the PAL monitor too? You're really not going to be able to have any idea of what it truly looks like without it.

Yes, they are going to get a PAL monitor to go with the Decklink.

Will the Decklink handle XDCAM EX 1080i50? I can't find an answer to this anywhere on their site. Possibly, this is because it can output any 1080i50 format, regardless of the codec? Or, is this because it won't work?

Thanks!

Hey Benjamin

I can't answer you categorically as I've not worked with that exact same set up, but it would seem likely that it will work just fine. There is a XDCAM EX workflow document on the Sony site which states that "a low cost Decklink or Kona card will allow you to export your programme to tape", by extension I'd guess direct playback of the codec from the timeline will therefore work.
It's certainly specifically noted as supported with HDV which is similarly structured codec. Given the situation I can understand your hesitancy in recommending something that "might" not work, so why don't simply call there customer support and talk directly to someone who can confirm it categorically?

The tech support no. for the US is +1 408 954 0500.

Cheers
Andy

Yeah, I'm getting contradictory info, from the people at Decklink versus people that work with Decklink. I'm going to call support back, tomorrow. But, basically, the people who are going to do the online are telling me that all of our XDCAM EX footage has to be transcoded to a Black Magic codec, before the Decklink will output it to a monitor.

On the other hand, the guy at Black Magic told me that the Decklink HD Extreme will handle the XDCAM EX footage without a problem. But, I'm not sure if he meant that there would be no problem importing the footage with a decklink codec?

I have to talk to him again, and/or find somebody else who has offlined with XDCAM EX 1080i50 footage.

Sorry Benjamin,

I wish I could offer more definitive info.
I have a number of BMD Multibridge Extreme equipped G5 workstations ... but all are using FCP 5.1.4, and none are compatible with EX codec material. I could happily test (tomorrow) with XDCAM HD 1080i50 playback but that still wouldn't be categoric proof that the EX codec would work with the Decklink cards

My gut feeling is to side with those that are telling you it will work ... I certainly don't think it needs to be transcoded to a Blackmagic codec in order to play back.

Maybe someone else has a Decklink HD card they could test for you? C'mon boys and girs in PAL land, there must be some of you out there who have the right hardware and could spare a few minutes to put B. out of his misery? Just transcode a few seconds of material to XDCAM EX 1080i50 and then see if it will play out through HDSDI from the timeline.

Failing that B., you ought to take your question directly to a good and heavily trafficked XDCAM EX forum, such as that found over at dvinfo. There are loads of owner/operator/editors over there, many using FCP edit setups ... perhaps someone will have the answer for you.

Cheers
Andy

Sorry guys I didn't read this post before...

HDCAM EX1 1080i50 works fine through the Decklink HD Pro and Multibridge 2 on FCP6...

It will play perfect 1920x1080i 25fps 8bit

It will also play the HD EX1 in realtime downconverted SD PAL 720x576 25fps through the card.

This was from the SDI, Component and composite outputs (I haven't tried the HDMI from the Multibridge yet).

I did have jumpy playback of the EX1 footage when I attempted to use the 1080i50 10bit view setting but this may have been my old G5 struggling with the colorspace conversion from 8bit EX1 footage to 10bit rather than the card itself. I will have to test on the MacPro Intel Octocore soon.

Also this was played back from a FireWire 800 G-Tech 250GB HDD.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Ben,

You just made my day. I am so happy that I need to just make sure that we really did the same thing.

These people are adding a Blackmagic card two weeks into post-production. Which means that none of the material was brought in from the original camera files with any sort of Blackmagic codec. And, the FCP session was set up without any sort of Blackmagic presets or settings.

Without any sort of Blackmagic or Kona codec involved, the Decklink card will be able to output my sequences to a PAL monitor at both HD and SD screensizes?

Tentatively elated,
Benjamin

_________________________________________________
"[Final Cut Pro is] so pretty when [Final Cut Pro is] faithful to me."
-- Pixies

Yes you bring in the EX1 movies created in the SONY software and use them on the timeline directly.

On the SD front though - whilst it looks fine on the monitor I would be cautious doing anything other than a preview output of the material as HD realtime to SD until you have checked the output is on spec.

Your output monitor will need to be an HD one if you want to see HD.

If anyone else is reading this post and needs to work with EX1 material you may also require these bits of SONY software to work with it in FCP.

Final Cut Pro/XDCAM Transfer 2.7.0: [www.sony.co.uk]

XDCAM EX Log & Transfer Utility v1.0: [www.sony.co.uk]

and for EX1 to Avid or conversion to other common formats:

XDCAM EX Clip Browsing Software V2.0: [www.sony.co.uk]



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

It's a beautiful thing when a Ben helps out a Ben! Thanks for the good news.

If you have an additional moment, I'd just like to clarify:

> On the SD front though - whilst it looks fine on
> the monitor I would be cautious doing anything
> other than a preview output of the material as HD
> realtime to SD until you have checked the output
> is on spec.

What do you mean by "preview output," in this case? Are you saying that if we bring in an SD monitor, rather than an HD monitor, that we shouldn't rely on the images we see as the last word on how our material will look when actually downconverted to SD? Are you saying that because the final project will be color corrected in an uncompressed format, and then downconverted to SD, that we can't count on the SD output to actually represent our final SD broadcast master?

Thanks so much!

Sorry I thought it needed a bit of clarification when I wrote it but I was in the middle of proof-reading a dissertation for a friend on the "Factors that influence an audience?s consumption and appreciation of theatrical movies" ...very good and quite useful information - I would be inclined to run the research over to the LAFCPUG members in order to get a wider view.

Anyway I digress!

I've tested it a bit more fully now and the best option for this is:

Using the Blackmagic Decklink 6.6.7 control in the Preference Pane in the System Preferences

Select Output Processing: HD to SD Anamorphic 16:9

Set your video output in FCP to:

View>Video Playback>Blackmagic HDTV 1080i 25Hz - 8bit (1920x1080)


This will give you an accurate realtime downconversion of the HD material.


Whereas I simply tested the output of the HD 1080 EX1 timeline in FCP set to:

View>Video Playback>Blackmagic PAL - 8bit (720x576)

Which did look ok but there was some aliasing and I wasn't sure if this output was simply a preview or whether it was truly downconverted.



So yes use the former settings and you can preview the HD images in Full Quality D1 720x576i 25fps SD PAL on an SD monitor.

However you won't be able to view actual full detail 1920x1080 HD images on a PAL SD monitor of course, as you need a true HD monitor for that!



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Thanks so much, Ben!

No problem Ben!



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Just to follow up:

We bought the Blackmagic HD Extreme, today. We won't have the monitor rented until tomorrow. However, I was able to go HDMI out into the Dell 2408. Looks great! Immediately saw details we had previously missed (in this case good, but I'm sure in other cases bad). Even though it is a 60Hz monitor, the video playback seemed to have no flicker issues. It looked pretty great! Not as great as a real monitor will look, but we had much better resolution.

Our XDCAM EX 1080i50 works just fine in a Blackmagic HD 1080i 25 Hz sequence.

One question: Why is the Blackmagic setting for 25 Hz, rather than 50 Hz? Will this effect whether I am seeing the video as it will look when broadcast?

Thanks for all your help!

You're very welcome - sorry I didn't see the thread earlier or I may have been able to allay your fears sooner!

I have mine hooked up to a 19" Broadcast HD CRT via SDI and 42" HD Plasma via Component HD both look lovely.

On the Blackmagic front...

25Hz refers to the frame rate and the 'i' for interlaced frames.

Hertz is a measure of frequency and not specific to a technology.

Its a measure of the number of events (oscillations, rotations, etc) occurring per second.

eg:

Framerate for 35mm Film is 24Hz (usually)

Framerate for PAL is 25Hz

Field rate for PAL is 50Hz

Audio Rate for DVCAM PAL is 48,000Hz

Speed of my heart after a game of squash 2Hz



So whilst a bit confusing maybe it really doesn't matter at all as it is technically correct.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Dear Benjamin,

I was facing this same problem in one of my films. Since i am from India we use 1080i50 here (PAL).

Here's a solution to your problem.

1) While your project is open in FCP, press command and 0 (zero) together, if not Zero try O incase zero isn't opening the preference window. ( I am writing this article away from my edit machine.
2) Settings window will appear.
3) On the very 1st tab i guess its General tab, you will see a Compressor Drop down menu.
4) The current setting will be XDCAM 1080i50.
5) You need to select Apple ProRes 4222 HQ and the exit from the settings.
6) You will notice that your timeline has RED render lines, thats because you have changed the codec.
7) Now export your footage and see that the interlace lines have gone.

Hope this resolves your matter.

Please do get in touch incase you need any help on sdastagir@gmail.com

Cheers,

Sadiq.

Have some footage shot in Asia. Shot on a SONY HDV camera, don't know the exact model number right now (it may be Sony HVR-V1).

Some of the footage was already imported directly into hard drive, and when I open it in Quicktime, Inspector says it is HDV 1080i50, 1,440 x 1,080 (1,888 x 1,062). FPS 25. Rest of footage is on tape and not captured yet.

1. The tapes I was trying to capture using a SONY DSR-11. According to this forum (http://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.php?1,156746), DSR-11 does not play HDV (regardless whether PAL or NTSC), so I need to get a new deck– not sure which one.

2. Meanwhile, for the files that are already digitized, I am trying to import those Quicktime movie files into FCP and that gives an error message saying unrecognized file. Capture Presets are set in Easy Setup to Format: HDV, and Use: HDV- 1080i50 Firewire Basic. Get an error message "Unable to initialize Capture Device."

That's correct. A Sony DSR-11 cannot read HDV tapes. If you can't find a deck, you could always connect a HDV camera and use that to capture from.

Your capture presets don't have anything to do with files that you import from hard disk. So that's a separate issue. Do they play OK in Quicktime? Were they perhaps recorded on disk rather than tape? And which version of FCP are you using?

There are two different issues, two sets of objects.

1. HDV PAL Tapes that I need to log, for which I will need to get access to an HDV camera.

2. HDV files that were already obtained from that same camera's hard drive, which cannot be imported into FC.

For #2 the problem is those files were directly pulled off (drag and drop) from the camera's hard drive instead of using Log and Transfer. As a result they are in an unworkable format. MPEG Streamclip can't open them, neither can Apple Quicktime 7 Pro (you get the notorious "An invalid public movie atom" message). Apple Quicktime Player (not 7, the other version) can open them, but since that Player cannot convert the files, it's useless (except for viewing). I have been recommended ClipWrap to fix these files.

[www.divergentmedia.com]


Meanwhile for the PAL HDV tapes, I had 4 of them (out of 30) digitized today at a production house in Manhattan.

The files they have given me are 1920x1080, Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), Linear PCM, HD (1-1-1) {not sure what color profile this is}, 25 fps.

I set my FCP sequence to Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920x1080 50i 48 khz and brought in the clip. Came in fine, did not ask for any rendering. However, the sound is out of sync (it is in sync when I play the clip in Quicktime).

The only thing I could find when looking at the QT file in FCP vs the Timeline is that although Audio Rate is 48.0 KHz for both file and sequence, Audio Format is 24-bit integer for the file and 32-bit floating integer for the sequence.

So I went into Sequence Preset Editor and changed Audio Settings>Depth (which was set to 16 Bit for some reason) to 24 Bit, deleted the previous sequence and opened a new one. Dropped the file in and the sound is still out of sync.

Also the Sequence still shows "32-bit floating integer" so that doesn't seem to have changed as a result of the 16 to 24 bit change.

Premiere can probably read the busted HDV clips if you don't want to buy clipwrap. Just download a trial, import them, drop them on a timeline and export whatever you want for your FCP project.

Does the sync drift over time - is it worse by the end? Or is it a constant offset?

Cannot tell if it is getting worse. It's bad at the beginning for sure. No match with mouth. If it's constant, then I suppose could just do the kluuge of shifting the entire audio track over until it matches...

Thanks for the Premiere tip, will try that as well. At this point the focus is these files digitized from the tapes and the sound sync. That's the main issue now. Any suggestions appreciated.

Reply from my friend. And that was the problem, wireless speakers set to different kHz.

"Only thing I can think of is a problem with your speakers. Did you try with headphones instead? Are the speakers wireless? Are they set to 44.1 khz? Sound sync issue usually means one part of the system is set to 48 khz and the other to 44.1 khz. For whatever reason this is usually only a problem with FCP. Also all FCP sequences have 32-bit floating integer sound compression by default."